September 28, 2006

Malaise scratches in her ear, Bose headphones clamped around her riot of curls.

...I chimed in with a haven't you people ever heard of…

Steady handed, she traces her lid with Maybelline's Rebel Grrrl Black.

Ah shit.

She thickens the line below her left eye to match the right.

Velvet, dusky lashes flicker back at her in the mirror.

Not bad, Granger, almost covered up the red puffiness.

Can't let Parkinson see you cry.

...No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality…

Why bother thinking about those bitches right now, honestly.

She pulls a black ribbed tank over her wiry shoulders, its hem settled just above her winking belly ring. The v between her hip bones meets the low rise of her jeans. An outfit with an expiration date.

In the mirror, Avril Lavigne gives her a wry smirk from the wall behind.

You're fucked, girl.

The phone's high trill echoes from across the Grangers' split level and she knows it's for her. Not like mom's sober enough in the morning to take calls.

Still, she pretends not to hear when her mother hollers from the couch,

"'Mione, phone!"

Jesus, she must really have to yell over her infomercials.

...I mean, technically our marriage is saved…

"Hermoine!"

Ugh. She slams her pink tube of lip gloss down on the dresser and clicks off Urie's plaintive whine. Her headphones slide down her neck like a collar.

"Coming!"

Towering stacks of newspapers hem the hallway. She picks her way between a yellow pillar of National Geographics and tucks her tailbone to miss the tupperware. The entryway is now completely blocked off with detritus (the 'mountain stage', as she's always thought of it) so she ducks through the living room.

Thin stripes of light cut through the blinds, illuminating her mother, beached on the couch in an oversized tee with the logo, Granger Family Dentistry. The shirts are all that's left of the business, the money, her father.

"The fack are you doin' in there?"

"I'll get the phone," Hermoine says, nearly tripping on parts to a broken vacuum cleaner lurking in the narrow tunnel to the kitchen.

Something is molding nearby.

As she scoops the phone out of it's cradle, a wave of nausea ripples through her.

A gag rolls upward.

Not now.

She clenches her teeth, the squawk of the phone going to static in her ears.

Slowly, the feeling fades; the cold prickle of her skin passes and she hits the green button.

"Hello?"

"Granger?"

It's him.

The fucking nerve.

"Gra… Hermione." That low, effortless bass thrums in her ear.

Coaxing.

Sweet as novocaine.

"I wanted to explain."

Her glossy lips peel into a sneer.

"Fuck off," she snarls and hangs up.

She heaves into the overfilled trash can.